Rocacorba Daily

Tuesday September 17, 2013

by CyclingTips - September 17, 2013

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Hello and welcome to your Tuesday morning edition of the Rocacorba Daily. After a busy weekend of racing and news today is substantially quieter. The biggest news: Chris Horner missing a doping test and USADA admitting it was their fault. Enjoy!

Ciolek wins stage 2 at the Tour of Britain

Germany’s Gerald Ciolek has won the second stage of the Tour of Britain overnight after pipping Sam Bennett to the finish line to become the new race leader.

Gerald Ciolek wins stage 2 of the 2013 Tour of Britain.

MTN Qhubeka’s Ciolek and Irish rider Bennett (An Post-Chain Reaction) moved past Thomas Lovkvist of IAM Cycling, who was leading with 500 metres to go, before the German edged out Bennett in a sprint finish to claim victory.

The 26-year-old, who won Milan-San Remo in March this year and came third on Sunday’s first stage in Scotland, finished in just over five hours to claim the leader’s jersey.

Great Britain’s Simon Yates is up to second in the general classification after coming fourth, with riders covering 186.6km including the race’s first Category 1 climb, on the Carlisle to Kendal stage.

Former Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins crossed the line 17 seconds off the lead for Team Sky and is 12th overall, but there was more disappointment for Omega Pharma Quick-Step’s Mark Cavendish, who darted out in front of the leading group with 10km left before Lovkvist started to build up a lead with 8km to go.

Cavendish had the platform laid for him by his teammates on Sunday’s first ride from Peebles to Drumlanrig Castle, but he was boxed in and slipped off the pace. And on Monday he finished down the pack a massive 47 seconds behind Ciolek.

The third stage on Tuesday takes the riders on a 16km time trial starting and finishing at Knowsley Safari Park.

USADA admit Horner isn’t responsible for missed test

The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has confirmed they do not consider Tour of Spain winner Chris Horner to have missed a drug test after Spanish anti-doping authorities turned up at the wrong hotel to carry out a test on Monday.

The 41-year-old American became the oldest ever winner of a grand tour in Madrid on Sunday.

The Spanish authorities had been asked to carry out the test on behalf of USADA and attended the hotel where the majority of Horner’s RadioShack team were staying on Monday morning.

“Chris Horner updated his whereabouts with USADA before the start of the final stage, giving the agency the name of his hotel for the night, phone number and room number for his one hour window between six and seven a.m.

“This is all according to the rules and Chris Horner received a confirmation email,” they said in a statement accompanied with a copy of the said emails Horner sent to and received from USADA.

The email correspondence between Chris Horner and USADA about his whereabouts.

In response USADA admitted that there had been no wrongdoing on Horner’s part and that they had not passed on the information regarding Horner’s change of whereabouts before the testers visited RadioShack’s hotel.

“In response to public statements from Team RadioShack today concerning Chris Horner, USADA can confirm that we were coordinating an out-of-competition test with the Agencia Española de Protección de la Salud en el Deporte (AEA) while Mr. Horner was in Spain.

“Mr. Horner properly updated his whereabouts information in advance of the test attempt, but given that the information was received in the United States, the AEA doping control officer on the ground in Spain did not receive the updated information prior to arriving at the hotel.

“This is not considered a missed test and neither anti-doping organisation provided information to the media regarding this situation.”

Chris Horner stage 21 interview

Riblon re-signs with Ag2r-La Mondiale through 2016

Christophe Riblon has extended his contract with the Ag2r-La Mondiale team and will ride with the French squad until 2016.

Riblon won a famous victory at this year’s Tour de France after he dragged in and then dropped Tejay van Garderen (BMC) on the second of two climbs up Alpe d’Huez.

Riblon also won a stage at the Tour of Poland and finished third overall.

“I’m very proud to wear during three additional years the colours of the Ag2r-La Mondiale team,” Riblon said in the official announcement from the French team.

“I want to thank Vincent Lavenu and our sponsors who trust me for nine years and who are still present at my side. I want to build on the great results I obtained this summer and to pay the team back for the trust they have shown. I know I’m able to obtain excellent results on World Tour one-week races. I also think to one day races as Milano-San Remo.”

Hunter first rode as a pro in 1999 with the Lampre-Daikin team and has since ridden for Mapei-Quick Step, Rabobank, Phonak, Barloworld, Garmin-Transitions, Team RadioShack and most recently, Garmin-Sharp.

Hunter has won a stage at the Tour de France, two stages at the Vuelta a Espana and also won the Tour of Qatar overall in 2004. He was the South African national road champion in 2012.

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Great bike handling skills on display. Interestingly though Stannard doesn’t appear to loose much cruising through the corner.

Matt de Neef

Stybar goes around the corner faster but he has further to go so it probably works out at about the same.

jules

he also loses out by placing his front wheel in the air as he jumps off the kerb, during which he isn’t doing any cornering.

Kayrehn

But he earned points for style definitely…

Dave

Wrong. He gains a huge advantage by doing the majority of the cornering before the apex, allowing for better mid-corner speed past the apex, better exit speed and an earlier chance to get on the gas than Stannard’s classic track racer line. If Stybar was just behind Stannard instead of leading, that would have been enough to overtake on the exit from the corner.

That kind of bike handling skill from Stannard is going to be a big weakness in the Classics if that’s normal for him. To improve his form in the classics, he needs to forget about the velodrome and do some cyclo-cross racing or start riding a fast motorbike. He may even have a fear of going fast a bit like Wiggins does, the solution to which would be some heavy laps in a lightweight car like a Caterham on a circuit with a race driving instructor before moving onto an even lighter formula car.

Joshua Krabbe

Rumour is that the first .gif is Stybar

jules

lol @ belkin rider – “keep ‘em coming – there’s more space yet!”

Frank

I would have thought you’d want to blur Chris Horner’s full email address – not just the part after the @?

Matt de Neef

You’d think so, wouldn’t you? That’s how RadioShack-Leopard sent it out in a press release…

Thanks again CT for the Whereabouts article. I think we need more focus and more transparency on the actual practice of doping prevention, otherwise we’ll continued be deafened by the din of pure speculation whenever someone is surprised by a performance. I’d like to see all of the processes and all of the results publicly accessible.